Jane Austen’s Bookshelf

Explore your favorite author’s favorite authors at the JASNA Hawai‘i Reading Group’s summer discussion on March 28.

We will discuss Rebecca Romney’s 2025 book Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend.

The Washington Post calls the book “a meditation on reading and writing, on honesty and self-discovery—and on what books can teach us, if we let them.”

Email us for meeting details.

Listen to author Romeny’s interview on the JASNA Chat podcast.

The book is available to borrow from Hawai‘i State Library or purchase from Bookshop.Org ($19 paperback, $16 ebook), Jane Austen Books ($25); Barnes & Noble ($21 paperback, $16 ebook); or Amazon ($21 new, $16 used paperback or Kindle).

The Austen Affair

The Austen Affair

The JASNA Hawai‘i Reading Group will discuss The Austen Affair on July 25, place to be determined.

“Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this “delightfully clever and riotously funny” 2025 debut novel by Madeline Bell that Macmillan Publisher calls a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.

“In order to eclipse the [romance] trope, the author must add her own spin. Madeline Bell’s The Austen Affair provides a delightful whirl for the reader,” according to the review in JASNA News.

Email aloha@jasnahawaii.org for meeting details.

The book is available to borrow from the Hawaii‘ State Library or for purchase from Jane Austen Books ($17 new); Amazon ($16 new, $8 used paperback or $12 Kindle); or Barnes & Noble ($19 paperback, $12 ebook).

Jane Austen 250th Birthday Bash

JASNA Hawai‘i and the Hawai‘i State Library invite you to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth on Saturday, Dec. 6, 1–4 p.m. at the Hawai‘i State Library, 478 S.King St. in Honolulu.

Learn Regency-era activities, including card games and dancing. Watch videos about Jane Austen and her times or participate in our photo booth, trivia contest or book exchange.

This free, festive event is fit for Austen fans, anglophiles, cosplay history buffs, and anyone else curious about the life and times of the woman who penned six celebrated English novels, including Pride and Prejudice.

A Jane Austen Halloween

Join us for a mysterious meeting and frightfully fun film co-sponsored by the Hawai‘i State Library System.

Saturday, Oct. 25
1–4 p.m.
Hawai‘i State Library
478 S. King Street, Honolulu
Costume optional—Regenciy, zombie or come-as-you-are.

Test your detective skills in a Jane Austen whodunit for a chance to win a book from the “Being a Jane Austen Mystery” series by Stephanie Barron.

Then watch the screen adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Lily James and Sam Riley portray the iconic lovers as a spooky duo..

‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life’ – June 1

We’re off to see Jane Austen Wrecked My Life at Consolidated Kahala Mall Theaters on Sunday, June 1 at 12:50 p.m.

RSVP by end of day Wed. May 28 by emailing jasnahawaiinei@gmail.com and we will pick up tickets. Please bring $15 cash or check made out to Donna Lum. If you miss the deadline, you can purchase your own ticket at the box office or online.

The 94-min French film—in French and English with subtitles—is about “a hopelessly clumsy yet charming” bookstore employee who dreams of a successful writing career and Austen-esque romance, but is “desperately single and plagued by writer’s block” until attending a Jane Austen writers’ residency.

A Lady of Letters

Jane Austen is believed to have written thousands of letters. Just 161 survive, collected in various compendiums—familial and scholarly, deciphered and illustrated, economic, and expensive. The Hawai‘i Region explore a handful of the letters for its July 12 Reading Group online discussion.

Participants from Hawai‘i and across the continent read excerpts and speculated about the sentiments behind the words.

Published collections of Austen’s letters, from the somewhat sanitized family volume through comprehensive and scholarly editions, available at a range of prices from a variety vendors and sources, including the Guttenberg Project,

P&P on the Big Screen

Has it really been two decades since Matthew Macfayden and Keira Knightly gave us new takes on Lizzy and Darcy? We were all smiles when Regal Dole Cannery Theaters marked the 20th anniversary with a re-release in of the 2005 hate-love tale. It may not have settled our disputes over who wears which roles best, but we all agreed that the big-screen experience was worth the trip to the theater.

Sisterly Censorship

To get ready for Public Television’s four-part Masterpiece Theater series Miss Austen in May, the JASNA Hawaii Reading Group discussed the novel that inspired the new series—Gill Hornby’s Miss Austen: A Tale of the Austen Sisters. Allowing plenty of room for speculation, we had a spirited discussion of sibling relationships, Regency manners, and Cassandra Austen’s possible motivations for destroying correspondence. Protective lioness, self preservationist, or practical de-clutterer—what do you think?

Holoholo to Ho‘omaluhia

POSTPONED: We will visit the fourth of Honolulu’s five botanical gardens, trekking to the Windward side to explore Ho‘omaluhia, on a date to be determined, followed by lunch at a location to be determined. Email JASNAHawaiiNei@gmail.com for details.

Located at 45–680 Luluku Road in Kāne’ohe, the 400-acre garden at the base of the majestic Ko‘olau mountains features features plantings from the Philippines, Malaysia, Tropical America, India & Sri Lanka, Melanesia, Hawaii, Polynesia, and Africa.

The name means “to give peace,” and the garden was created in 1982 to give peace of mind, providing flood protection for Kane‘ohe.